Oogie Boogie Mantis
by Crow T R0bot
Summary: As Snake sneaks through Shadow Moses, a strange spell falls over Meryl that leads to a curious musical interlude. Song parody from The Nightmare Before Christmas.


Hot damn! This thing was sitting on my hard drive collecting dust for years before I posted it. It was going to be part of a more ambitious story in which I turned the entire Shadow Moses incident into "Metal Gear Solid: The Musical," though I only ever had the drive and inspiration to write this one (and yes, most of them would have been Disney numbers).

After some reflection, I decided I might as well put it out there. However, given that the song I'm using is the only thing taken from _The Nightmare Before Christmas_, I decided not to count it as a crossover. Hence why it's here in the _Metal Gear_ section.

Disclaimer: I do not own _Metal Gear Solid_, it's the property of Konami and Kojima Productions and is the work of Hideo Kojima. I also do not own the "Oogie Boogie song" as it is the intellectual property of Danny Elfman, Touchstone Pictures, and Disney... I think that covers everything.

"Ow, my head…it hurts!"

Snake's head sharply turned to Meryl, who doubled over with her fingers pressed against her scalp, as if trying to dig out whatever was causing her pain. Attempting to investigate further prompted Snake to take one step forward before Meryl stumbled, nearly losing her balance and falling on her face.

"Don't come here Snake!" Meryl exclaimed, waving her arm back at him in a crudely adapted "halt" gesture.

She could feel one more pulse of that mind-violating presence drilling into her psyche before she planted her hands on the floor to stay balanced.

"Meryl! Are you okay?" Snake asked in a surprised voice.

Meryl answered with one more agonized moan...only for her breathing to slow as she calmly rose to her feet in an unnatural, slinky motion.

She opened her eyes and blinked twice, apparently readjusting to her renewed bearings.

"What happened?" Snake asked walking over to the rookie soldier.

There was an awkward pause...

"I'm...fine..." Meryl answered; her voice now devoid of the emotion it carried just five seconds ago.

However, as soon as she moved forward, he knew something was wrong. Her movements jerked and her body seemed to flail about. Obviously she hadn't somehow frozen time, gone to New Orleans for Mardi Gras and come back to her old position to restart time again like nothing ever happened...but Snake couldn't think of any other possible explanations.

"Okay, let's go..." She commanded flatly as she reached the entrance door to the base commander's office. "Come on Mr. FOXHOUND, the commander is waiting."

His options limited, the master of stealth could only follow his charge forward into the following room. He stepped through the automatic blast doors to meet a marble-floored room decorated with brown walls, paintings, book cases, an appropriately authoritative looking desk with paintings of Japanese businessmen hung up on the walls behind them. Even some sofas and a couple armored suits sat against the wall. To top it all off, the left side of the room featured a table with a holographic model of one of the major objectives along Snake's route, the communication towers.

Trying his best to ignore Meryl's vacant stare, the commando walked forth into the open room, not noticing any enemies nearby. He disregarded the entrance doors slamming shut on him, writing them off as simply shutting automatically like the other PAN card doors he'd opened.

It was about then that Meryl bent over clutching her head, releasing a series of heavy breaths as she struggled to stay on her feet. Snake ran to her side and grabbed onto her back so she would not fall over. She aided him...by putting her hand against his waist. He thought nothing of it as Meryl placed her other hand on his chest to further establish her balance. He thought nothing of the awkward positioning of her hands on his body, too concerned for her well being to think of the implications as she hung her head low.

She slowly but surely lifted her head back up, her eyes half slit in a stoic, tired expression...

"Do you like me?" Meryl asked in a hissing, almost whispered voice.

"What the-?"

Snake paused mid-sentence as Meryl circled her "crush," casually feeling up his arm, gently rubbing his back, and then, once behind him, firmly placed her hands on his shoulders.

"Do you _like_me?" She repeated in a deeper hiss. "Hold me, Snake!"

"What's wrong?" Snake asked in a much more concerned tone. He may have known Meryl for an hour, but he was pretty sure this _wasn't_ Meryl.

"Hurry," she begged, her breathing carrying an erotic and desperate rasp. "Please, make love to me!"

Snake was so distracted by this display that he didn't see Meryl's right arm slither down to her holster...then jumped back as Meryl pulled the gun clear of its sheath, aiming it at the mercenary's head.

And that's when _he_ appeared. The strange ghostly form of a trench-coated man in a gas mask hovered behind the rookie soldier.

"_Snake, I want you"_ Meryl and the strange apparition said in perfect synch, the exact same intonation and emotion devoted to the strange puppet work.

"Who's that?" Snake asked forcefully.

"_What's wrong, you don't like girls?"_

_BLEEPBLEEP!_

"Snake, Meryl's not herself! Don't use your weapon!" The panicked countenance of Colonel Campbell shouted through the Codec.

Naomi took her chance to explain. "It's Psycho Mantis. He's controlling Meryl. That tune is his mind control music."

"Don't use your weapon! Try to knock her out!" Campbell insisted.

One flash-bang later, mission accomplished. The flash and roaring explosion were quite loud, and even looking away did not totally protect Snake's vision from the blast, but at least Meryl couldn't be used by Mantis for the moment. The disturbing melody Snake heard vanished with her threat. Did he bring down Mantis as well?

_Too easy,_ he thought.

His thoughts were confirmed as the intermittent silence was replaced with a warped, jazzy tune that conveyed an essence of darkness and decay.

When the flash faded from his eyes, Snake could see the lighting in the room had changed. Everything had become dimmer, and what little light there was seemed to come from an unseen blacklight, giving any remotely brightly colored object its own glow.

"Colonel, is this another hallucination?"

The Colonel hesitated, examining the situation through Snake's eyes. He could make out the same things Snake did, not sure what it meant...that is until, a jazzy tune began playing the background.

"Damn it, Snake, you're in a lot of trouble now!" The Colonel exclaimed.

Before Snake could inquire as to how much and what kind of trouble he was in, Naomi clarified.

"What you heard earlier was Mantis' mind-control tune...that one you're hearing now is when he's _really_ spoiling for a fight!"

"Guy sure likes to sing on the job," Snake remarked. "I'll call you back, I need to concentrate."

Snake cut the Codec and examined his slightly altered environment with the sights of his SOCOM as a focus. He didn't know what to expect from this new environment, but with the strange, warped jazz tune ramping up, he somehow knew the Psychic psychopath was drawing near.

His theory was confirmed when he felt a light tapping on his back, like someone through a wiffle ball at him. He swung his gun around to the source of the impact, finding nothing in the direction of the desk.

...Until he looked down...

Sitting at his feet were a pair of novelty dice that had come to a complete stop by the time he noticed them. They gave a purplish, off-white glow matched by only two black dots between them. How appropriate...

_Snake eyes_...

However, the glow was killed as a man's shadow loomed over the dice. Snake snapped into action and pointed his guns upwards and sure enough, there he was. Hovering above the floor in BDSM leather and his black gas mask, the only sign of the man's position was the demonic orange glow the blacklight gave to the eye pieces of his mask.

_Well, well, well...What have we here?_

He leaned in closer, as if he weren't close enough to get a good look at the agent already.

_Solid Snake huh? Ooooh..._

He snapped his arms around his face in an expression of mock terror reminiscent of Munch's "The Scream." The eyepieces on his mask suddenly giving off an unearthly, floodlight-like glow.

_I'M REALLY SCARED!_

Snake's aim slackened ever so slightly, incredulous at the way the man introduced himself.

_So you're the one the boss keeps wangsting about? Ahahaha!_

The telepath hovered slowly in a semi-circle around Snake, who lowered his gun in confused disbelief at Mantis' behavior.

_You're jokin'! You're jokin'! _

_I can't believe my eyes! _

_You're jokin' me, you gotta be!_

He then gestured to his right temple

_But mind probes never lie!_

Mantis himself examined the soldier Liquid kept "wangsting" about all the time. Despite the fact that they were both clones of the same man, and the obvious similarities he could already see, the man Mantis saw looked too different from Liquid to be a true clone. He had heard him speak with a gruff and unmistakably scratchy voice, complete with an American accent. Plus, he didn't look quite as "civil" as the current FOXHOUND commander.

_He's Yankee! He's brutish!_

_I don't know which is worse!_

Mantis leaned his masked face uncomfortably close to the super spy.

_I might just bust a stitch now..._

On cue, a piece of Mantis' stitched-in-place skin seemed to slide out of place, only for the psychic soldier to unflinchingly slide it back into place and let one of the straps on his mask hold it in place.

_...if I don't die laughin' _first!

Snake was so stupefied by this unprofessional display of "soldiering" that he did not resist when Mantis grabbed him and spun him like a top, disorienting the son of Big Boss.

_Mr. Psycho Mantis says there's trouble close at hand..._

Mantis stopped Snake and grabbed his arms and shoulders as if to dance.

_You'd better pay attention now, 'cuz I'm a psycho, man!_

_And your controller's rumblin', so something's very wrong! _

'_Cuz this will be the last time you hear my Mantis song!_

Letting go of Snake, Mantis telekinetically pushed him away and hovered over to a shelf of various bric-a-brac; Mainly decorative pottery, suspended above a few chairs.

"_Whoa-oooooh!"_ Mantis sung. The urns and the cushions of the chairs contorted into mouth-like shapes and produced a disturbing, echoing _"Whoa-ooooooooh!"_

"_Whoa-oooooh!"_ Mantis repeated in a deeper tone to a pair of knight armors. They too replied with a _"Whoa-ooooooooh!"_

Immediately afterwards, the three paintings of Japanese businessmen hovered at Mantis' side.

"_Whoa-oooooooooh!"_ Mantis intoned in a higher pitch this time...Only for the men on the paintings to give their own _"Whoa-ooooooooh!"_ In a squeaky, helium distorted stream of high-pitched squealing.

They were soon thrown aside as Mantis lunged forward.

_I'm a total Psycho, man!_

Recovering from his spin, Snake tried to steady his aim at the Psychic again. The masked man, however, did not seem to notice, and if he did, he just didn't care. Then again, he was a psychic, so he was probably ready to move out of the way of Snake's bullets at a moment's notice. Curiously, he continued his deadly song.

_Now since the fourth wall hates me,_

_And I don't much like it too..._

_I read your mind and then I find-..._

Mantis nearly cut his own song short as he managed to find a particular item on someone's memory card.

_Hey, like Suikoden II?_

He stared at Snake through his mask menacingly.

_Then do you know the best snack for appeasing Luca Blight?_

_A tender, slender, Solid Snake, yeah, sure, I'll have a bite!_

On cue, an apparition of the RPG villain manifested, ready to bring his sword down on Meryl's neck.

"_Whoa-ooooooh!" _The apparition wailed, narrowly missing Meryl's neck as Mantis telekinetically pulled her out of the path of his sword to tease Snake.

"_Whoa-ooooooh!" _Mantis echoed

"_Whoa-ooooooh!"_ chorused several Silent Hill mutant nurses as they narrowly missed digging a scalpel into a still moving Meryl's puppetized body across the floor.

"_Whoa-ooOoOoOoOoh!"_

Mantis sang his loudest as Meryl jerked upwards into a standing position.

Her eyes shooting open and her Deagle rising to face Snake again, Meryl crowed out an unnaturally deep _"Whoa-oooooooh!"_ before a prompt disarming sent her back to the ground. Mantis and his illusions, undeterred by this mild impediment, jumped forward, still singing.

"_Yeeeeeah..." _Mantis intoned with a guttural growl

_I'm a total psycho, man!_

Snake had to stall for time until he could find a way to free Meryl from the telepath's grip. He knew diplomacy would work, but these villains really seemed to enjoy talking him up. What better way than to start a new conversation?

_Release her now or you will have your face smashed in this marble._

_And could you take that dumb mask off? Your voice just sounds all garbled._

Hoping his own pitch into the song distracted the super soldier; Snake lifted his SOCOM once more and fired a round. Mantis not only immediately dodged it, but in the same movement, flew past Snake, shook the SOCOM out of his grip, and began to dance with the easily disoriented black operative again.

_Ha! You're jokin'!_

_You're jokin'!_

_I can't believe you asked!_

The disbelieving Mantis flicked Snake's arm in such away that once again he was struggling to stay on his feet as he spun like a cyclone. With this window of opportunity, the air between Mantis' hands distorted as he created a telekinetic sphere and tossed it at Snake, sending the agent flying across the room and face planting on the floor.

_Would someone shut this dumbass up?_

_I'm choking on my mask!_

Quickly closing the distance between himself and Snake, the latter looked up in time to see Mantis approach.

_It's funny!_

_I'm laughing!_

_You really are too much!_

Mantis came out of his levitating hover and planted his feet on the floor, quickly leaning over so his masked face was uncomfortably close to Snake's.

_And now with your permission, I'm going to do my stuff!_

"What are you going to do?" Snake queried, his voice not betraying any fear.

"I'm going to fuck up the fourth wall so badly, it'll cause structural damage to the second and third walls!"

Before Snake could inquire, the world went black and silent, save for the green digital image of the word "HIDEO" in the upper right hand corner of his vision and a brief, screeching beep sound, like a printer warning of a lack of paper or a jam.

He waited, wondering what was going on...

And waited...

And waited...

And waited...

Only for Mantis' shout to pierce the darkness...

_Whoooooooah!_

Regaining his vision, Snake saw Mantis hovering in the center of the room once more, surrounded by a hurricane of objects that could be deadly of telekinetically thrown at anyone. Wasting no time, he ditched his SOCOM and immediately deactivated the safety on his FAMAS rifle, taking aim and pulling the trigger, he sent a wall of bullets in the psychic's direction.

_The sound of whizzing bullets here is music in the air!_

Dodging the bullets with only slight jerks to his right and blocking stray ones with concrete statues, only one bullet got through Mantis' defense, streaking through the debris and hitting a "businessman" in one of the portraits, who went cross-eyed and sank out of his painting as his two "neighbors" turned to look at the shocking turn of events.

'_Cuz I'm a master telepath so no, I don't play fair!_

_It's much more fun, I must confess, when lives are on the line!_

_Not mine of course, but Meryl's okay, now she'll do just fine!_

Unfazed by Mantis' expert dodging and blocking, Snake removed the empty magazine and popped in another.

_Release her fast or you will get your brains smeared all over her face!_

Mantis was about to burst into another round of laughter, but suppressed it.

_Oh David!_

_You're somethin'!_

_You put me in a spin!_

_You are uncomprehending._

_The position that you're in!_

Unfortunately for Mantis, while Snake had no comprehension of the position he was in, the player did. And as the controller slid free of its slot, Mantis did not even notice the sudden silence where Snake's thoughts were. Instead, he made the unwise move of steadily getting closer and violating the mercenary's personal space once more.

_Game over,_

_You're finished._

_Just don't waste a continue!_

_Because I'm Mr. Psycho Mantis_

_And I am going to _kill you!

Mantis concluded the song with a hearty, demonic laugh...until he heard something that sounded like a bird chirp, followed by the strange sensation of being punched in the stomach by a really tiny but strong fist. He suddenly felt weak.

Looking down, the Psychic soldier noticed Snake's silenced SOCOM buried in his stomach. A thick red liquid oozed from where it was pressed against his abdomen. Mantis could only think of one logical explanation, but the ludicrousness of Snake somehow bypassing his mind-reading skills was preposterous. However, as his vision began to blur, he suddenly found that he lacked the brain power to calculate another explanation.

Gazing at Snake one more time as his balance wavered, Mantis managed to raise a heavy, accusing finger at his nemesis.

"You cheatin' baaaa-uh..." Was all he managed to say before he fell to the ground with an ignoble 'thud.'

**Happy Halloween!**


End file.
